Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by the Gateshead Council’s education Gateshead Service

This is our written submission for a Commons Education Select Committee Inquiry into “School Sports Following 2012”.

1. Impact and effectiveness of current Government Policy and expenditure on increasing sport in school

The current Government Policy has been effective in:

Reducing significantly the number of children taking part in school sport in both primary and secondary schools.

Reducing the funding to School Sport Partnerships has reduced provision of school sport and has led to patchy provision across the country.

Appearing not to have a clear strategy but rather has provided funding for one initiative—school games. There is no vision or support for these other vital elements:

developing sport skills in the curriculum;

providing CPD and support to teachers;

provision of time for teachers to plan and develop intra and inter schools events;

links to community opportunities—sport, physical activity;

forming a clear pathway for talented individuals—level 3 and 4 school games are not progressive; and

providing festival type events where many students can experience competition -School games caters only for the best and a relatively small number of young people at Level 3.

Advocating one-off competitions for the most talented that will not bring about a sustained increase in participation in school sport by large numbers of young people.

Delivering a detrimental impact on the levels of Physical Education and activity young people are receiving in our schools; these have quite dramatically decreased over time since SSPs were abolished.

Abolishing ring fenced funding for a successful nationwide network of school sports partnerships that was recognised as a world leading infrastructure delivering on targets—even competition.

Abolishing the annual and national School Sport Survey that made SSPs accountable and therefore unable to measure accurately any impact of Government Policy.

Reducing (anecdotally) the percentage of pupils receiving 2 hours of high quality curriculum PE a week is heading at full speed back to the Pre School Sport Partnership levels.

Removing the necessity for schools to provide a high quality PE curriculum that engages all young people ensuring they are provided with a basic level of “physical literacy and education” that encourages sporting habits for life enabling all young people to fulfill their potential in both whether that be on the sports field, dance studio, gymnasium or simply to keep fit and healthy (both mind and body) etc.

Being purely focused on increasing sport and competition that only really appeals to those young people who are good at “it”. Many young people who do not perceive themselves to be good at sport do not want to play competitive sport and certainly not in the traditional games The Government appear to be championing ie Cricket, Tennis, Rugby.

Providing all secondary schools with non ring-fenced funding for two academic years (2011–13) for a PE Teacher Release Post (ends this academic year). The impact this has had is that we have haphazard coverage due to funding not being ring-fenced and several examples of the funding being spent on other things and worryingly in some cases not even on PE and school sport; great strides made with the SSP infrastructure have very quickly regressed in a time when we should be seeing a real and tangible legacy from London 2012.

Reducing DfE funding on PE and school sport from £162 million to £65 million with the impact being many redundancies throughout the SSP infrastructures.

Employing School Games Organisers working for three days a week to implement the School Games programme of competitions. Due to the reduced number of hours per week this policy has a direct impact on the number of competitions delivered and young people involved; this impact is that SGOs are only able to deliver a small fraction of the levels of competition, both regular and one off, at all levels in comparison to the previous School Sport Partnership infrastructure.

Increasing the number of most vulnerable young people in our communities who are disengaged or at risk of being disengaged from PE, sport and/or physical activity. The impact of this is that we will have an increasing number of young people who are not achieving recommended levels of weekly physical activity, who are overweight or obese and other inherent health (mental and physical) issues.

Reducing the broad range of physical activities and sports (such as Indian Dancing, Ultimate Frisby etc) introduced through the SSP infrastructure that appealed to these most vulnerable young people. The impact of this is that more young people will become or be at risk of being disengaged from PE and school sport and thereby discouraging sport and physical activity habits for life and increasing the inherent health problems this brings.

2. The scope, appropriateness and likelihood of success of the Governments plans for a school sport legacy from London 2012

The School Games initiative is not in itself a school sport legacy and will not prove successful in making a sustainable increase in the numbers involved in regular school sport.

There was huge enthusiasm leading up to and during the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics—there was a great opportunity to build on the excitement. However the Government did not have a clear school sports legacy strategy in place and that momentum was already diminishing significantly.

The announcement made by the Prime Minister on 16 March regarding funding for Primary School Sport in England, however, is welcomed. This announcement appears to be providing the scope, appropriateness and likelihood of success of the Governments plans for a school sport legacy from London 2012 albeit rather delayed thereby allowing momentum to wane. This recent announcement, however, is really welcomed.

If the funding is to reach every young person it is extremely important to recognise that schools will need support in how to maximise its impact. Funding will need to be used in a way that makes high quality PE and sport sustainable, and embeds both within school life. Primary schools in particular will need support to achieve this.

The main reason for optism around scope, appropriateness and likelihood of success of the Governments plans for a school sport legacy from London 2012 following this announcement is that:

The money is ring-fenced and can only be spent on PE and sport in schools.

It doesn’t purely focus on competition as a strategy but rather aims to provide a more “rounded” approach to improving opportunities in PE and sport for all young people.

It aims to ensure that all children have the chance to: lead healthy and active lifestyles; to enjoy PE and sport in school; to compete against their peers; and to have the chance to achieve sporting excellence from and early age. These are all elements that it would be hard to argue against.

It aims to improve the quantity and quality of both PE and school sport provision and opportunities.

The expenditure and impact will be monitored and reported on by Ofsted.

3. The impact so far of London 2012 on the take up of competitive sport in schools

The axing of funding for the School Sport Partnership infrastructure, programmes and national measurements of PE and school sport in October 2010 has seen a dramatic decrease in the number of:

(i)The number of school competitions at all three levels (intra, inter and County level).

(ii)School age young people competing at all three levels of competition (intra, inter and County level).

(iii)School age young people competing regularly at all 3 levels of competition.

The number of schools and participants involved in all 3 levels of competitive school sport has reduced significantly since 2010 and regardless of London 2012.

4. What further measures should be taken to ensure a sustainable and effective legacy in school sports following London 2012?

The announcement made by the Prime Minister on 16 March regarding funding for Primary School Sport in England is really welcomed but it is vital that a clear legacy strategy is developed urgently with clear outcomes for young people and it needs to address:

(i)Joined up planning and funding by all agencies to ensure they all target school aged children—Sport England, National Governing Bodies of Sport, Health agencies; the policies of these sports organisations now focuses on the over 14 age group.

(ii)Training opportunities for teachers to improve the quality of Primary Physical Education and School Sport particularly in the light of inadequate ITT for PE.

(iii)The provision of time for teachers to both plan for and attend school sport events.

(iv)PE to be a core subject in the National Curriculum to ensure it is not marginalised and time squeezed from it; this is essential in order to help young people achieve the levels of weekly physical activity and knowledge and understanding needed to develop healthy and active habits for life; thus contributing positively to the health agenda and assisting with the reduction of children who are overweight or obese, health inequalities and associated childhood illnesses.

(v)Reintroduction of a national PE and school sport survey to include measurable outcomes one of which should be a 2 hours of curriculum PE target for all pupils in FS, KS1–3 and an aspiration for KS4 pupils to achieve this.

(vi)NICE guidelines widely advocated and promoted regarding recommended weekly physical activity levels for children and young people.

(vii)Ring-fenced Investment in a strong infrastructure ie People to co-ordinate, deliver and develop all aspects of high quality PE and school sport and help to share good practice; this will help to support already over committed teachers and departments.

(viii)Provision and investment for children and young people who are talented in PE and school sport.

(ix)Investment for the development and deployment opportunities of young sport leaders, volunteers and officials.

(x)Funding to assist schools to develop strong and sustainable links to existing community clubs as well as developing new community clubs in minority sports.

(xi)Investment, training and support to encourage school aged minority groups (ie girls, BEM, inactive, disabled etc) to participate in extra curricular physical activity and sports clubs in both school and the local community.

(xii)Olympic and Paralympic athletes to be regularly available to visit schools and groups of young people throughout the country to act as role models, mentors and general inspiration in both sport and life.

The recently announced funding stream needs to be secured for more than two years if the work is to be embedded and sustained thereby ensuring a true and lasting legacy from London 2012.

April 2013